It seems to me like the spectrum of our actions has selfishness clearly defined on one end, and yet the other end seems so far out of sight that we wouldn’t know it (or trust it) if we ever caught ourselves quickly enough to see it.

Is there really such a thing as true selflessness? Does it even exist?

Even Jesus was selfish if you consider that his actions were eventually meant solely for the glory of God. Even God is selfish if you consider that he somehow split Jesus off from himself to go about with that dirty work of salvation.

When I try my damnedest to be selfless in my actions, putting the happiness of others well before my own, I know deep down that all I’m really doing is trying to set up the cards so that I might be found blameless and pure in the end. So that my wife and kids will call me a wonderful husband and father at my funeral.

The “golden rule” is to treat others how you would like to be treated.That’s a pretty self-driven statement, isn’t it?

Isn’t mankind just doomed to selfishness on a day-to-day basis?

Maybe so and maybe not.

I have a couple of friends who would stand as fine candidates for true selflessness.

But they’re both pretty miserable a lot of the time.

At least is seems that way to me.

Does true selflessness have to breed misery?

Is misery always a bad thing? Can anything be learned from it?

Wait, that’s selfishness again.

Is selfish selflessness the way to happiness? Some strange brand of backwards hedonism? You’d have to be pretty damn manipulative to get that working for you.

People call me manipulative. Some even say controlling.

I say influential.

Shit.

Maybe I really am a selfish asshole.

I do plenty in the name of selflessness, but let’s be honest — there’s always a reward for me built in too.

I’m not entirely sure I’ve ever done anything with only others in mind.

But what’s wrong with that? Why can’t I enjoy the fruits of my labor? Who says I’m supposed to wallow in misery because anything else would be counted as selfishness? What if I’m just crafty enough to have my cake and eat it too? I’m lucky to have a brain that works well and I ought to use it, right?

I’m just trying to get through life and not be miserable, which is far harder to do than I ever truly imagined. This world is a screwed up place and if I can feign selflessness while stockpiling my own future blessings, what’s wrong with that?

I love my wife to inspire her deeper love for me. I don’t demand love like a dictator, I do my best to earn it. Isn’t that what Jesus did? We don’t love Jesus because he was cool or handsome or good at sports — we love him because he first loved us — right?

The difference, of course, between myself and Jesus (among many) is that when I don’t get quick love back, I get pissy.

Then again Jesus did the same thing, really.

He often threw his hands up and shouted to the sky “How much longer must I shepherd this unbelieving flock?!”

He was human, after all.

So what’s the deal? How do we do it? What are we supposed to do when our example of love comes from a being who is himself deeply selfish?

What was the motive of the woman who washed the feet of Jesus with her hair and tears and perfume? Was it simply true love — pure selflessness? Or did she secretly know that Jesus would respond to her the way he did? Did she wash his feet to get a blessing from him, or was she just acting out her love without thought or fear of consequence?

Is it possible that she exhibited selfless love when Jesus himself did not? Is it possible that Jesus is not necessarily the prime example of selfless love?

I’m an armchair theologian, or course, and a shabby one at that, so I truly have no educated idea. But it feels like I’m onto something.

I’ve been running around this sorry world acting like God.

Loving others to untimately bring glory to — me.

Shit.

God is, of course, the only being that really does deserve glory, so maybe it’s appropriate that his love is laced with his own selfish motives.

I’m just an idiot that wants a good eulogy and regular sex. That’s really all I’ve been gunning for when you get right down to it.

Maybe that’s what should be written on my tombstone. It’s fitting, really. Fitting for a lot of us.

So what do we do? I’m guilty of selfishness. But I really do love my family and what them to be happy. That’s never been in question.

What’s always been questionable is my motives.

Is it possible to always deflect all love and praise and thanks back towards God? It must be possible. Seldom easy, and scarecly consistent. But surely it must be possible. Right?

I’m guilty. Guilty of trying to take the thanks and love and blessings all for myself. Guilty of doing things for my greater glory. Guilty of dropping the mirror that bounces it towards God and soaking it all in for my own damn self.

I’m furiously guilty of selfishness.

Does the knowledge of one end of the spectrum beget the knowledge of the other end too?

Is it possible to be truly selfless? To never expect God to reward you or bless you until after you die, and then maybe not even then?

Because if you’re just gunning for the golden ticket into heaven, isn’t that really just selfishness all over again?

I tend to think the girl who washed Jesus’ feet with perfume didn’t have any idea what Jesus’ response would be. I tend to think she was just compelled to act out her love in the most scandalous and radical way possible, with no hope for anything good to come out of it.

Because at that point it time, Jesus was still alive. He hadn't done the work of salvation yet. He was just walking around doing his thing. How could she have known what was to become of her and her actions? The Bible didn’t exist yet.

She was broke down and tired and at the end of her rope, and she looked at the bottle of perfume in her hand and without so much as a spare rag to wash with, she used her own ratty filthy hair.

Then Jesus says something so audacious that it still rocks me to my core some 2,000 years later.

He looks at Simon and tells him that he loves little because he has been forgiven little.

Then he tells him that the woman loves much because she has been forgiven much.

She loves because she has been forgiven. Not because she wants to get into heaven, but because she has been deeply and truly and wholly forgiven. That’s it.

We all like to think that if we were in that room we’d have been the woman — simply because the magnetic power of Jesus would have drawn us to his feet. But Simon didn’t lunge for the feet of Jesus in tears. She did.

And God saidto meI will beIn a tree With enough extra spaceFor a boy with a faceLike a wilderness IndianWith muck on his kneesAnd a rockAnd a stickAnd an old piece of stringAnd we will hideAnd wait For the nighttime footfallsOf dangerous maraudersAnd invaders from spaceAnd at just the right timeWe will spring our great trapA catapult we setWith a branch and a netAnd we will catch them like thatAnd peek out from the holeOf the mighty old trunkWhere we hide and we seekAnd we sleep under leavesAnd draw dragons and bearsOn the wall of our lairAnd hide outLike badgers With pocketsFull of marbles and rocksAnd we'll talk aboutScurvy and measlesAnd ugly old weaselsAnd wait for more bandits To walk down our pathBy the tree in the woodsWhere a boy and a lionWear wolverine hoodsAnd march in the moonlightTo places unknownWhere our mothers and fathersDare not roam alone

“Long distance runner, what are you standing there for? Get up. Get out the door.”

Behold, my servant, whom I uphold. My chosen, in whom my soul delights. I have put my spirit upon him, he will bring forth justice to the nations. He will not cry aloud or lift up his voice to make it heard in the street.

The bruised reed he will not crush, and the smoldering wick he will not snuff out. He will faithfully bring forth justice. He will not grow faint or be discouraged.

Thus says the Lord, who created the heavens and stretched them out, who spread out the earth and that comes from it, who gives breath to the people on it, and spirit to those who walk in it:

I am the Lord. I have called you in righteousness. I will take you by the hand and keep you. I will give you as a covenant for the people. A light for the nations. To open eyes that are blind, to bring out prisoners from the dungeon, from the prison those who sit in darkness.

I am the Lord. That is my name. My glory I give to no other.

For a long time I have held my peace, I have kept still and restrained myself. But now I will cry out like a woman in labor. I will gasp and pant. I will lay waste mountains and hills and dry up their vegetation. I will turn the rivers into islands and dry up the pools. And I will lead the blind in a way they do not know, in paths that they have not known. I will guide them. I will turn the darkness before them into light, the rough places into level ground.

There's something furious in me that shrieks and grinds its teeth. There's a burning to explode and cut through the earth with a fiery vision and a rage from deep within.

There are two things pulling me, both with profound gravity.

One is the gravity of earth. The tendency to stay right here where things are normal and planned and understandable. Things that give me rest in my dreams.

The other is the gravity of the Living God himself. Standing up there in the clouds, or in my soul, that great and violent spirit that calls me up to the moon, to stand there and smile and heave with life.

But I will do both.

I am the one who stands on the edges of cliffs and howls at the horizon. I am the one who lays my children down at night with unfathomable love.

Oswald Chambers said spiritual desolation is always your fault. Never God’s fault or anyone else’s. He said people end up in spiritual desolation for one of two reasons:

You have satisfied a lust.

You have not satisfied a lust.

In other words, there is only one possible reason for spiritual desolation: Lust.

Lust can take shape in any form - it’s not always a sexual thing.

The word Lust in the dictionary has three definitions:

Very strong sexual desire.

A passionate desire for something.

A sensual appetite regarded as sinful.

Lately, I have been covered in lust. All three kinds actually.

I don’t have an issue with pornography, I have an issue with letting my mind wander at the drop of a hat. I have an issue with distraction. I’m surrounded by muses calling me away, and sometimes I let my mind wander. I neglect to resist it. I’m out of practice. I’ve forgotten how to resist.

Then again, I really haven’t. I know damn well how to resist. I’ve just stopped trying.

And then I end up in spiritual desolation.

So the question I’ve started asking myself is:

What are you going to resist today?

Are you resisting anything right now?

I wasn’t a few days ago, but I am now.

Find out what’s screwed up within you and resist it.

There is a really popular thing going on right now in the cycling world called “fixed gear cycling” - where you have only one gear on your bike, and no brakes. The only way to slow down or stop is to use your legs to resist the continuous spinning of the pedals, which is way harder than you might think. Our legs aren’t used to that action. It feels like something that doesn’t make sense, like it won’t work.

But it does.

People stop that way all the time.

But you have to practice.

Resist.

Resist the spinning pedals that have been going your whole life.

Try a new thing.

Resist it. Everyday.

And sooner or later, you’ll be able to stop completely - not forever, but just for that one day - because you’ve decided that you can, and you will, and although it’s hard, it is also good. It strengthens us.

God's got me low right now. I'm downcast and downtrodden and just worn out from the trouble of walking around down here. I've been supremely pissed at God lately. I've been raging and shouting and crying and feeling broke and miserable and apparently that's where God wants me to be for the moment. I've been feeling a little bit like Job lately - as if God offered me up to the enemy to screw with me just to see what I would do, which I think is total bullshit. I hate that about God. I hate that God does that stuff. I hate that the reward for seeking hard after the Lord is God letting you see what it feels like to be out from under the cover of his wings for awhile. It's dark and cold and miserable and I don't want to be here. But I think the purpose of it is this: A good friend of mine sent me a video yesterday and it broke me down like I've never been broke before.

If you feel like God is tearing you apart right now, this is for you:

[youtube=://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qyUPz6_TciY&w=854&h=480]

God's plans for us feel pretty screwed up sometimes, and right now I am deep in the middle of it, and all I can do is say this:

Though you ruin me, still I will worship.

I've been on this dumb stupid momentary spiritual high for a while that had me thinking I was this powerful mighty man of God who breaks down walls and casts out demons and calls lightning bolts down from the sky but the awful yet comforting truth is that I am at my very best for God when I am utterly and completely broken.

Pride is a heavy cloak to wear and when I didn't throw it off myself God ripped it from my shoulders with anger and violence and a friend of mine bought it from me for a thousand bucks this week.

So I'm broke, tattered, torn, ripped to pieces - and back to normal.

A few months ago I asked a friend if I could have some if his Shalom and he said no. God wants me to be here and so this is where I'll be. Being broke at the throne of grace is actually a whole lot easier than being Samson. I'm not Samson, I'm just little scrawny me and that's how God made me and that's good.

God, I don't like what you're doing, and I don't have a good attitude about it, and I'm certainly not happy about it, but

though you slay me, yet I will praise you though you take from me, I will bless your name though you ruin me, still I will worship

If Satan exists like we say he does, and if he is at all similar to what we think he is, then I give up.Yeah he hates marriage and God and the church and he hates me and I can deal with that being true - but what I can't deal with is that he is so relentless with it. If I was relentless too that would work out fine, but I'm not relentless.

I relent. Whenever I want to. All the time, actually. I'm great at relenting.

Of course, they say God is relentless too, and I need not worry with battling the devil all by myself, because God fights against him in my stead.

But that can't be true because if that was true I wouldn't feel like somebody kicked me in the guts and stole my lunchbox so much of the time.

I can testify to the steady relentlessness of the devil. He's impressive in his ability to maintain an attack literally forever. The devil is excellent at being reliable. The apostle Paul said so himself:

So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand.

God, on the other hand, despite his countless promises to do the opposite, seems to hang people out to dry pretty regularly. Look what God did to Job. Read the Psalms. They are full of praises but they are also full of questions like "God, why have you forsaken me?" and "Do not forget me forever!"

Even Jesus was forsaken by God on the cross.

So what's the deal? God drops us off at the pool with Satan playing lifeguard? He certainly did that to Adam and Eve, didn't he? Is that how this is supposed to work?

Satan is relentless.

God dropped me off at the pool with no one to watch over me but a relentless beast who wants to kill me and rip me apart like a wolf.

That's what I feel like sometimes.

I feel like a kindergartener who was forgotten about in the pickup line at school and a pedophile kidnapped me and took me home instead.

Worse yet I feel like God drove me to the pedophiles house himself and told me to get out of the car.

That's what he did to Job, isn't it?

Sure God picked him up years later and gave him everything he ever wanted or needed in life, but seriously - what the hell?

I feel like God left me a lot of time. I'm not going to lie about it. I feel abandoned. I feel forgotten about. God walked out of the room and I felt him leave. It got cold and dark in here. I don't care what the Bible says about it - I don't feel God here and that's a big deal to me.

I feel no God in my life sometimes.

It sucks and I hate it and I want God back in my life but he comes and goes on his terms and I hate that and there's nothing I can do about it.

But you know who doesn't ever leave me? Who is always breathing down the back of my neck?

You know who really is relentless in his attack against me like I wish God was relentless in his defense of me?

The devil. Satan. The evil one. He sticks with me no matter what.

God doesn't. God skips town on me and it's complete bullshit.

I know all about God being omni-present and everything, and if that's true, and God really is here with me right now, even though I can't feel his presence, this is what I say to him:

God, this is bullshit. I'm not playing this game anymore. It sucks. Life is crap right now and you're just sitting there with that all-knowing look on your face and you think you're teaching me some great and useful lesson with your silence but the fact is, I'm tired of the lessons. I'm sick of it. I don't want to learn anything anymore. I drop out. I'm done. I lose. The devil wins. Whatever I have to say to be done. This sucks.

Whenever you decide to speak up, I'm listening, but I'm done with the lessons. I'm done learning things your way. I don't learn anything like that, and you should know that better than anyone. If you want to talk to me, I wish you would do it in a way that works for me. I'm not coming your way anymore. I'm so sick of this crap. You think you can just be completely quiet and stare at me and that's how we have a conversation? THAT DOESN'T WORK IN THE REAL WORLD.

And you're still quiet.

Thanks. This sucks.

If you need me I'll be out back getting raped by Satan. I would love nothing more than for you to come do something about it.

Over the past year, I've been told at least a dozen times that I need to write more.I assume that people expect me to write about stuff that matters in the honest style in which I tend to write when writing about honest things honestly.

I make no promises to write regularly, or even at all.

I will, however, promise to write fully and with good intentions.

I also promise to kind of hate this whole writing/creativity thing and get frustrated and have long periods of silence wherein I do absolutely nothing.

David Foster Wallace said something once about the tragedy of creativity, which is that almost nothing you ever do can be as perfect outside of your head as it exists inside it. I agree completely about whatever it was he said that resembled that, but I take it down a notch because it does feel good to do something sometimes.

I’m up to forty-seven books now. Both were fantastic.I’m not going to go into an in-depth review of either of these books right now - mainly because these book posts are just here to serve as my up-to-date official book list which I will continue to keep for the rest of my life.

So I’m pretty late to the game on this book - but I heard it was great and despite the controversy, I’ve always meant to pick it up. It did not disappoint.

It’s all about Frey’s time in a rehab clinic after years of hardcore drug abuse and it’s not for the faint of heart. Frey uses some incredibly harsh language - but I found it appropriate given the subject matter. Sometimes there’s a place for the worst of words - and Frey actually uses them well. If his intention was to convey his feelings at the time, it worked. I got it.

Honestly, I don’t really care that many of the biggest scenes in the book were largely fabricated - it’s a great read and a great story. I liked it.

Anyway, those are the two new additions to the list, which is posted in full below.

I just read another book, bringing my lifetime total to 45.The book was Catch Me If You Can: The True Story of a Real Fake by Frank Abagnale. Yes, it’s the book that the movie of the same name was based on, starring Leonardo DiCaprio - and one of my favorite movies of all time.

Frank Abagnale tells the true story of his exploits as a full fledged con man, from age 16 to 21. In those years, he swindled over 2.5 million dollars out of the hands of banks, hotels, airlines, and other large businesses. He never graduated from high school and yet traveled the world posing as a co-pilot for Pan American Airlines, worked for a year as the chief resident pediatrician at a children’s hospital in Atlanta, passed the Bar exam and spent nine months working as an assistant prosecutor for an Attorney General (in some unnamed southern state), taught sociology for a summer at Brigham Young University, and even posed as a stock broker for a short period of time.

Once he was finally apprehended, he spent six months in a French prison (which, after reading this book, makes me never want to visit France again), one year in a Swedish prison (which kind of makes me want to commit a crime in Sweden and end up in one of their prison-hotels), then he was extradited to the United States and escaped out of the toilet compartment on the jet and lit off on the runway to freedom - for a while.

He was then apprehended again and escaped again, and apprehended again, and escaped again, several times before they finally managed to keep him locked up for six years for his crimes. He still has warrants for his arrest in dozens of European countries, which I’m sure he’ll never visit again, and he currently operates a successful consulting firm to help banks keep from being swindled by crooks like him.

This was an amazing story and I highly recommend it to anyone. After reading it, I now realize the incredible capacity (for good or bad) that people have when they wield unbridled confidence. Confidence is everything, at least in this story - and with it you are generally unstoppable. Frank Abagnale had such incredible confidence that while in prison in Virginia awaiting his sentencing, he literally talked the guards into unlocking his cell and escorting him out of the prison compound, where a friend of his was sitting in her car waiting to pick him up. He got in, and they drove off peacefully, with the guards laughing and waving in the distance.

The last 7 days have been total shit, which doesn’t happen often, but when it does it always draws me into a deep and selfish hole of hopelessness that I have little choice but to wallow in as life falls apart all around me, constantly sloughing itself off like a locust its body, which I imagine is both painful and stimulating - like a haircut, but with much more discomfort.I have shit days fairly often, as we all do, but its only during a “perfect storm” like this that I fall away into outer darkness while I await the arrival of Jesus to revive me - just like Lazarus.

In the story, Lazarus is deathly ill and his friends send for Jesus to come to his aid. So Jesus gets the news and rushes to Lazarus’s side and casts out his sickness immediately and everybody lives happily ever after.

Wait. That’s not how the story goes at all.

Jesus doesn’t rush to Lazarus.

Jesus doesn’t go at all.

Lazarus dies.

And for all his family knew, that was the end of the story. Lazarus was dead and they buried him.

Then, FOUR DAYS LATER Jesus finally shows up.

Talk about being late.

If I was Lazarus’s father I would have punched Jesus in the stomach and called him an asshole for showing up like that. They sent for him about a week earlier and gave him plenty of time to do his thing and what did he do? Nothing.

Lazarus was dead.

Game over.

Too late, Jesus. He’s already dead and stinking.

Now, we all know what happens next - Jesus raises Lazarus from the dead and life goes on.

Now I don’t know about you, but this doesn’t offer me much comfort in my distress. What kind of hope can you be expected to have when you’ve been dead, buried, and in the ground for FOUR DAYS?

Was Lazarus raised to life because he never failed to give up hope? No way. He was dead. He may have held onto hope up until his dying breath, but when you’re dead, you’re just dead. No thoughts. No hope. No prayer.

Did Jesus raise Lazarus from the dead because Martha and Mary never gave up hope? I seriously doubt it. I’m no Bible scholar but as far as I can tell no one had ever been raised from the dead before Lazarus. Everyone that died stayed dead. So I would find it hard to believe that Martha and Mary were at peace knowing that Jesus would show up eventually and zap life back into their brother.

So - the question becomes: Does Jesus rush to our aid and answer our prayers because we are stalwarts of hope?

No.

Why? Because Lazarus died.

So it seems: Jesus only does what suits Jesus.

Which is argument for trust, to be sure - but not for hope.

Hope is an issue that I feel I must hold onto as if it were my only lifeline, but as we find in the story of Lazarus, thereis a point at which hope fails us along with everything else. Even Jesus. The river runs dry.

Hope dies. Jesus doesn’t show up - and we hate him for it.

But then, right in the midst of all mourning and anger and hopelessness - here comes that weary old bastard, shuffling casually down the dirt road, way off on the horizon, carrying with him everything I need, and in no hurry at all.